


Ground Needs to Be Fed

by thatsrightdollface



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Ambiguity and Lies, Boats and Pirates and Nautical Imagery, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, alcohol mention, but still!!!, ghost story, happy birthday Korekiyo!!!, well... I'm technically posting this the night before his birthday where I am....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25622872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: “Of part and parcel, well we’re already dead, well it's probably been said that it’s always been said that — one wing isn’t even enough, it isn’t even enough, it isn’t even enough to leave.” — “Fly Trapped in a Jar,” Modest MouseKokichi Oma’s ship docks in a hungry town.  Korekiyo Shinguji’s waiting there.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Others mentioned
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	Ground Needs to Be Fed

**Author's Note:**

> Hi -- I hope you enjoy this story, if you read it!!! It’s very heavily based off the plot/imagery of the song “Fly Trapped in a Jar” by Modest Mouse, and the title is from that song, too. :D I decided a while ago that it could be a fun challenge to write a story referencing every song on the album “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,” and this is fic 7 for that personal challenge~ (For some reason, my fics mysteriously switched posting order, so I guess this is #8 now???? I did post them on the same night...) Sorry for anything and everything I might’ve messed up, and I hope you’re staying safe/doing as well as possible. 
> 
> Happy birthday again, Kiyo!!!!

There wasn’t any indication of the town on Captain Akamatsu’s maps, but what the hell — the storm had been raging all night, and the ocean was like overturned, crashing ink. Like somebody throwing a temper tantrum in an ink factory, Kokichi Oma had quipped to his boyfriend, Shuichi, as they fought with the sails. Shuichi hadn’t heard him over the rattling scream of the wind, mind you. He’d just called back, “What?! What?!” as another surge of dark-ink water hurtled toward them both, clinging to the mast and shivering through their clothes. Shuichi had a little seaweed caught in his blue-black hair. The whole world was choking salt water, stinging Kokichi’s eyes, getting accidentally gulped down whenever he tried to breathe. It burned his throat.

“An ink factory — ahhh, shit! It doesn’t matter!” Kokichi offered back, doing his best to steady Shuichi as the sky howled and the sea split apart, desperate to drown them all. Shuichi seemed so small and vulnerably human, in the dark, even though of course he was a fair handful of inches taller than Kokichi himself. “Here, hold my arm! I got you!”

Kokichi had spent too much of his life on the sea. He told everyone he’d been captain of a pirate ship before Kaede Akamatsu hired him on to her merchant crew, but that may or may not have been one-thousand percent accurate. He’d lived through storms like this one, though, shaky on his feet and gagging out jokes to try and make the people around him feel a little less panicky. He’d practically been here before, but... Shuichi Saihara, not so much. _He’d_ been a big-city detective until recently. Until a case had brought him out on to the water, infiltrating Captain Akamatsu’s crew to bring down a would-be assassin. It had been so cute, watching him pretend to be a grizzled sailor, like all that meant was doing up the fancy knots textbook-fast. Kokichi’d been like, hey, you need a hand, Mr. Detective? Wink wink. I know you’re not supposed to be here.

Kokichi had ended up becoming Shuichi’s right-hand guy for that case, and now, well. Shuichi said he’d never had anybody try so hard to entertain him before, and he’d kissed Kokichi so, so carefully... as if he might melt away into sea foam... after they got drunk together on shore leave one time. He propped himself up with his hands on Kokichi’s shoulders, and his breath had been dyed so sharp with rum. He’d stuck around for a while, after the case was done. He sent his wages back to some uncle in the big city, and he nodded along to Kokichi’s stories about being a fearsome pirate captain with a furrow between his brows but his lip twitching up into a half-smile as he listened. Kokichi knew Shuichi couldn’t believe him completely — but he also knew his detective’s gold-grey eyes felt so quizzical and lingering, like the word “Maybe” was on the tip of his tongue.

Could Kokichi Oma have beaten the cursed pirate queen Celestia Ludenberg at a game of bone-dice, winning his ship back from her murder-butlers?

Could Kokichi Oma have tricked a particularly enthusiastic siren into teaching him how to play the guitar? 

Could Kokichi Oma have orchestrated a heartwarming reunion between a shark-merman mob boss and his faithful bodyguard, and then been the only human invited to their wedding?

Maybe. 

Heh. You know: Kokichi _was_ a liar, but... maybe.

But back to the storm, and back to the lights along the shoreline that cut their way through all that ruinous dark. There was a lighthouse where there wasn’t supposed to be a lighthouse, see, and its lamp was flickering and sickly green; there was a town where there wasn’t supposed to be a town, on an island that hadn’t been marked on Captain Akamatsu’s map. By the time Kokichi and Shuichi finished messing with the sails, Captain Akamatsu was ordering the crew to prepare to dock there. Honestly, even after all his time on the ocean... even knowing they’d most-likely survive the storm, even knowing that sometimes the sea kept _wrong_ things close, and for every living ship that sailed those waters there was bound to be another belonging to the lost or the cursed or the dead... Kokichi was relieved. He’d never seen Shuichi shudder like this, and his boyfriend was already coughing into the crook of his arm. Captain Akamatsu was a practical woman, and resilient. It wasn’t like Kokichi was gonna say no to a hot meal and a dry bed.

The sickly green light on the shore swayed through the rain, reminding Kokichi a little of a dancer, spinning and spinning, lopsided and unsteady on their feet. They made their way towards it, and so... silly them, so trusting, so lost, so cold in their waterlogged boots... they didn’t see the words dripping in tender, doting calligraphy across that lighthouse’s own pulled-tooth-yellow bricks.

_“This is Sister’s Land._

_The Ground Needs to Be Fed._

_Thank You, Travelers.”_

It was a warning, and an invitation. Whatever reason the keeper of that island had to put a warning like that there, Kokichi would be sure he didn’t know, later — when he _did_ read the lighthouse’s message, but of course it was too late to turn back. The sea kept its wrong things close, from time to time, hoarding mysteries like sunken ships, like dresses gone moldy and tattered, like gold trapped forever inside treasure chests too heavy with barnacles for their keys to fit anymore. Maybe the warning was part of the terms — the contract — the haunting. Maybe the keeper of that island didn’t want to offer anyone to Sister who wouldn’t have been willing to come graciously. 

Captain Akamatsu ordered Kokichi himself to reach out with her into the dark, finding a dock to tie up their ship, bound super-securely against the storm. They dropped anchor; Kokichi slit one of his palms open, when a rope got snapped out of his grip in the wind. That was alright — his palms were mostly callouses and old scars anyway, by this point, after a lifetime on the ocean. He had no way of knowing how this island drank up his blood, just then. He had no way of knowing that it stirred, restless, waiting. It seemed like a pure coincidence, when the island’s keeper came stumbling out of his library to find them, next. Kokichi never thought to ask what woke him — the crew was loud enough, it could’ve easily been that. Maybe he’d been on duty in the lighthouse, even, and watching their approach from far away.

No.

That wasn’t it, though. 

We both know that wasn’t it.

The keeper of the island was a tall, pale man, with the kind of long, silky hair that storms loved to tangle into knots. He bowed to Captain Akamatsu, and he helped everyone off the ship and into his town. His face was hidden behind a smiling wooden mask: something he’d chipped carefully off a ship’s figurehead, it looked like. Kokichi had met people wearing stranger masks by far, in his time, so... you know. The sea and its unsteady places; the sea and its secrets. Strangers stood in the doorways of houses as Kokichi and the rest of the crew passed by, trundling their way to an inn. They seemed watery and unreal, in the dark-ink wind. A woman waved to Kokichi with a hand that didn’t get any brighter under the lamplight, and Kokichi waved back without really noticing that she wasn’t solid. The storm was just that fierce, see; the sea was still in his eyes.

When they finally reached the inn, Shuichi, ever the gentleman, thanked the keeper of the island for offering them a place to sleep. He was told, “Oh, it’s my absolute pleasure,” and “just wait until morning, when everyone wakes up. I’m sure Sister is going to like _you_ very, very much.” The keeper of the island had murky, knowing eyes, behind his figurehead mask. He swept those eyes over all of them, calculating, and Kokichi found himself wanting to step between him and Shuichi’s too-honest, trusting thanks. There was something ancient in those eyes, like ocean plants growing among the bones of the drowned. The keeper of the island was wearing a weird sort of coat, looking like just one translucent wing down his back. One wing, that twitched slightly when he got excited, starting to explain the history of the lighthouse when Shuichi asked about the unusual green lamp. One wing, that could never have taken flight at all. Had the other one been ripped off, intentionally? Had he traded it? Lost it? Offered it up, like love?

The keeper of the island had no reason to leave this place, but Kokichi and Captain Akamatsu whispered about getting the hell out of there just as soon as the storm let up a little bit. Leaving some coin on the weathered bar and setting sail ASAP. The last thing Kokichi remembered before things went bad was sitting at the inn table downstairs, bent over with his head propped on his arm, watching Shuichi and the keeper of the island talk. He had a piece of dry brown bread sticking out of his mouth, and was chewing it grumpily. Shuichi was talking with his hands, adorable as ever, explaining to the keeper of the island about a particular haunted coin Kokichi claimed to have found during his pirate days. The keeper of the island asked a lot of questions. He seemed fascinated, following along with Shuichi’s story, but Kokichi wasn’t interjecting jokes, for some reason. Kokichi was proud Shuichi wanted to brag about his Pirate-y Adventures, but... but...

But he was starting to feel a little twisted-up inside, too, like the world was swaying even though obviously this was his first time on dry land in weeks. The world creaked around him relentlessly anyway, and Kokichi was getting dizzier all the time, and just before he lifted himself up on his elbow and said, “ _Shuichi, something’s wrong_ ,” he realized he’d been drugged. He realized _they’d all_ been drugged, and the bread wasn’t terrible just because it was, well, incredibly stale. This bread was terrible because it had been baked with something meant to cloud them, turning living minds into dark storm-tossed oceans. Kokichi’s head clattered down onto the table, splattering lukewarm soup across Shuichi’s cheek.

“Kokichi?” Shuichi said, voice raising, swaying, tipsy like the crooked lighthouse lamp over the water. “Kokichi, can you hear me?”

No, again.

Kokichi woke up — if you can call it “waking up” — being dragged to his grave. He could barely open his eyes, mind you, and everything ached worse than the hangover after he’d attended that shark-merman’s mob boss wedding. The keeper of the island apologized to him for the rough treatment with a breathless little laugh. Sorry, Mr. Oma — I’m not terribly strong, you see. I can’t carry you far, but I can drag you easily enough. It’s not much farther, now. 

The earth was red and wet, around here. It clung to Kokichi’s hair and left streaks along his checkerboard harlequin coat. The air was full of buzzing, now, and as they got closer Kokichi could see why well enough: up ahead there were a hundred graves at least, and at the head of each grave there was an open jar with a fly trapped inside. A hundred flies at least, then, too, each missing one of their wings, struggling for an escape that wouldn’t come. They skittered and stumbled against their glass jar-tombs, and they matched the keeper of the island absolutely except for that soft, beatific smile on his figurehead mask. This island was one huge grave: there were so many plots of freshly-dug earth. Kokichi’s crew. Kokichi’s friends. Captain Akamatsu, too, likely as not. Where was Shuichi? The keeper of the island’s one wing caught in the light, looking like mossy, sunken-deep stained glass.

Kokichi was lowered into his grave in a way he would’ve had to describe as “lovingly,” if somebody decided to ask him. The keeper of the island smoothed down his hair, and rubbed a little of the red mud off his cheek. “Sister needs to feed, to stay in this world,” he said. “The terms are quite specific. I’m sure you understand.”

Kokichi tried to spit in the keeper of the island’s face, but, well. It wasn’t like he could open his mouth, nevermind summon any moisture into it. But he was the one who had gambled with the pirate queen Celestia Ludenberg, wasn’t he? But he was the one who had learned how to play guitar from an actual siren. He wasn’t supposed to end this way. He wasn’t supposed to leave Shuichi Saihara high and dry like this, not to even mention the rest of the crew he loved. Kaede Akamatsu had decided to bet on him, even when she couldn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. He wasn’t supposed to —

Kokichi wasn’t supposed to —

Hm.

You know, there are so many good people lost at sea, day after day. You know, there are so many stories that end with freshly-filled graves, and flies buzzing on and on. You know. Kokichi felt handfuls of dirt raining wetly down on his face, on his neck, on his fingers. Kokichi refused to close his eyes, and he vowed to keep working as hard as he could to stand up until the very last minute. He would fight against this even as the grave filled; he would strain every muscle he had until the world belonged to worms alone. But none of the flies could escape, with only one wing — obviously. It wasn’t enough, and it couldn’t ever be enough. 

The next time Kokichi staggered out of this grave, he would be as translucent as the ghost woman who had waved to him the night before. He and Shuichi would both belong here, now: the keeper of the island would find them a house in town, and nothing living would hear their voices again. It wasn’t _such_ a sad ending, was it?

Or maybe.

You don’t have to believe this next part, but you can if you like, same as all Kokichi’s stories. The word “maybe” is hanging in the air, though, sweet like a shot of rum after a long, hot day at sea. You might as well drink it down.

Maybe this was when Shuichi Saihara stumbled forward with the keeper of the island’s own shovel tight in his hands. Maybe he brought that shovel down, hard, on the back of the man’s head, and he lifted Kokichi out of the grave held tight in his arms. He kissed Kokichi’s forehead; he carried him back to their ship, stumbling, sometimes. Nearly falling, but somehow keeping his feet.

“I told him I’d go willingly, so he didn’t drug me,” Shuichi said. “I’ll get everyone out, and meet you back at the ship. Now we’ll have a new story to tell in taverns sometimes, right? I wonder if anyone’ll believe us.” 

Right?


End file.
